


he opened his mouth on judgment day

by thatsparrow



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Dialogue, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 19:55:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12801183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsparrow/pseuds/thatsparrow
Summary: Once Merle's dead, the room disappears and so does John's human form, and—just like that—he's back to being everywhere and nowhere and can turn his attentions once more to seeking out the Light of Creation.And John assumes—incorrectly, as it rarely happens—that'd be the end of it.--Or, John's POV of parley





	he opened his mouth on judgment day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bowerbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowerbird/gifts).



> a friend of mine mentioned it'd be cool to see john's POV of parley and I agreed
> 
> title from "hope in the air" by laura marling

It takes him a moment to understand what he's seeing, the first time it happens. He hasn't had a shape of his own in centuries—hasn't known anything other than the amassed and amalgamated form of all those countless and consumed planes—and so when he looks down and sees the charcoal lines of a tailor-cut suit and slender fingers pressed flat against a conference room table, it makes every kind of sense that he doesn't immediately recognize them as his own.

It's funny, he thinks, being human again. All that immeasurable energy of his compressed down into such a flimsy physical container, all fragile bones and delicate life-sustaining systems and how did anyone ever get anywhere—how did _he_ ever get anywhere—when humans are so fundamentally _breakable_. It's a thought that distracts him momentarily from considering the more pressing questions of _why_ and _how_ , but it doesn't take long for his restless eyes to finish their cursory appraisal of the shape of his hands and cut of his suit and to drift around the sunset-painted room and to fix on—what appears to be—the only other person there.

He's small, and that's the first thing John notices — would have mistaken the low set of his shoulders for those of a child, if not for the beard and the collection of sharp wrinkles cut into the weathered skin of his face that John can see in the orange-ember glow coloring the length of the conference room. So he's lived long enough for the years to show on his skin, and slight enough in stature to pass for someone decades younger, and John knows enough about the rest of the planar systems to figure a dwarf when he sees one.

Him in human form for the first time in centuries and seated across from a dwarf who's giving him this level look that speaks of a shared history between them, and that's every one of these unanswered questions made more interesting still.

Something new is happening, and that's a novelty for John. Even so, he's not so naive as to let the ornaments and set dressing distract him from finding out what the _fuck_ is going on here.

John opens his mouth to speak, an immediate irritation rising fast in his throat when all he manages is a kind of weak rasp. And the dwarf looking at him like he's trying to hide some amusement and—fuck's sake—is it _John_ 's fault he hasn't needed to manage vocal chords since before the dwarf was born? He makes a few other equally ineffective attempts before frustration has his jaw set in a tight line and he's close to killing if that's what it'd take to get him one single glass of _water_ —

And it's no sooner that he has the thought than there's a pitcher and empty glass sitting on the table in front of him, condensation beading against the glass and starting to run stuttering rivulets towards the surface of the conference table, and that's one more discovery to add to the list.

So his magic works here — wherever _here_ is.

The conversation starts once he's got his power of speech back, and ends not long after. John doesn't get answers to all the questions he has, but he learns as much as he needs to, and is well-versed enough in caution to cash in his chips when he's ahead — though he'd be lying if he said he's not a little tempted to risk whatever tripwires are surely built into the walls of the room on the off-chance that the dwarf— _Merle_ —might let slip a little more.

But for all that it's been an interesting diversion, it's not one to risk losing his life over. And so once John's learned enough, he holds out a hand and lets black fire kindle ink-dark flames in his palm, and then he watches as Merle burns alive.

Once he's dead, the room disappears and so does John's human form, and just like that, he's back to being everywhere and nowhere and can turn his attentions once more to seeking out the Light of Creation.

And John assumes—incorrectly, as it rarely happens—that'd be the end of it.

 

—

 

He doesn't know how much time passes between that first meeting and the second—he'd guess a couple months, by planar temporal systems, likely no more than a year—but then John finds himself once again sitting in that conference room, whittled down to human dimensions and a bright orange sunset lighting up the sky behind him and that _same goddamn dwarf_ in the chair at the opposite end of the table.

As soon as John catches sight of him—Merle, he thinks—he pulls himself to his feet, confusion and interest and something close to excitement running like electric currents through his veins, feeling equal parts fascinated and fucking _annoyed_ and it's been a long time since he's been at such a lost for what happens next.

He's still cautious as he lowers himself back to his seat, but John's willing to play along if only for how guileless Merle seems, his face a constantly shifting map of frank and unguarded emotion, and it's been long enough since John's sat across from someone so genuine and so _human_ that he doesn't quite know how to call it quits just yet.

So they come up with a game of sorts — agreeing to trade questions for honest answers like schoolkids bartering with baseball cards, and John promises to take part with an easy conscience and wonders if Merle knows he's about to be cheated.

Not that John's planning to _lie_ , of course, but he's been dealing in matters of truth and information long enough to know how to gain more than he's giving up and to leave Merle none the wiser. And it's easy, at first, to offer out a handful of platitudes that answer Merle's question with a reasonable measure of accuracy—for all that they're not particularly informative—and then it's John's turn and he's looking forward to this game he's sure will play like some version of chess.

But then fucking Merle doesn't give him a damn _thing_ — either backing out of the rules or else too ignorant to know better and it's pulling _teeth_ to persuade from Merle a handful of useful facts that John can do something with.

It's progress measured in inches, but it's a start.

When he kills Merle this time, he feels no more remorse than he did before.

 

—

 

Amicable, is how John would describe it, and that realization a funny thing given that it always ends with black fire bleeding over his palm and this look of sharp pain on Merle's face as he's consumed from within. And given the number of times John's killed him by now—always his version of a good-bye at these annual get-togethers—he wouldn't begrudge Merle either anger or frustration — honestly, John's sure Merle's lived through enough by now to have earned equal and overflowing measures of both.

But if Merle's angry, if he feels any resentment over the pain John puts him through, he doesn't show it or mention it or even seem to _care_. He dies, and John goes back to being his particular brand of everything and nothing, and then some approximate amount of time passes and they do it all over again — John back in the conference room and Merle seated opposite and, more often than not, he's wearing a grin like he's greeting an old friend and John can't figure if he's a masochist or that genuinely optimistic, with either answer seeming equally unlikely.

He tells himself Merle needs to learn less naivety, to hide his thoughts behind a mask that's not quite so unguarded. Justifies putting Merle through paces of pain by telling himself it's a teaching experience, and that Merle's a fool to be as trusting as he is and to never have picked up any sharp edges from the cumulative hours they've spent sitting together. And, moreover, what does it matter when John's coming out ahead after every one of their exchanges?

(Conveniently ignores thinking about the Light of Creation escaping him more often than not, or the way he's started to let his meetings with Merle stretch out by increased minutes before he pulls the black-fire trigger.)

So even for all the unpleasantness, amicable is how John would describe their relationship, and it doesn't feel like such an unfair thing.

He wonders if Merle thinks the same of him, what opinions he's keeping behind his relentlessly even tone and smile that sheds John's barbs like it's made of titanium — and realizes then that maybe Merle's better at this game than he thought.

 

—

 

"I don't mean to be vain, but I must look _beautiful_ from your perspective. All those countless worlds' bonds just streaming off of me—"

They're talking about the Light, the way they often seem to — John equal parts impressed and annoyed that Merle and his crew have managed to escape with it as often as they have. And he's trying to get Merle to understand the bigger picture, because he's _sure_ that if Merle could just see it from his perspective—if he could just see what this centuries-long effort has been _about_ —then there wouldn't be this friction between them. John made his living once on the power of his words, and even setting aside the years it's been since he last practiced, he has no doubt he can do it again.

"—it must be a sight to behold. I need that Light to accomplish my goals, and when you keep it from me? It is...well, Merle, it's...I can't let it keep happening for much longer."

He wants Merle to understand and—maybe more than he'd be willing to admit—he wants Merle to confirm that, yes, the sight of John's non-human form is something as spectacular and other-worldly as John's always imagined. And it's not too much to ask for Merle to give him this concession, is it?

But as soon as the words are out, he can see a brief flicker of something in the lines of Merle's expression — something verging close to pity, or, even, disgust.

It's not what John expected, and he feels a distinct lack of restraint when he kills Merle that time.

 

—

 

The first year that Merle skips parley, John doesn't notice it at first — doesn't realize until he starts to think of all the uninterrupted months that have passed and all of them absent a visit from Merle and that's when John pinpoints the unnamed emotion he's been feeling as _disappointment_. It's not something he's used to experiencing, not like this — sure, he feels flickers of frustration and dissatisfaction for every cycle the Light escapes him, but that's emotion on a loftier scale and driven by his greater cosmic ambitions, and so it's not quite the same as this personal and pointed thing he's feeling right now.

It surprises him—maybe more than it should—to discover how much he quietly looked forward to spending these handful of moments sitting down with Merle once a year, and that realization only made clear at this unexpected sense of loss he feels at being deprived of it. He's sure it doesn't mean that he's missed being human, or even that he _cares_ about Merle — no, John's sure it has everything to do with the novelty of a new distraction, one bright spot of unexpected color amid millennia of relentless monotony.

The next time Merle calls him—and John judges it's no more than a couple months later—he finds himself feeling relieved, if only to know with certainty that Merle hasn't yet grown tired of him or this game they're playing together. And Merle greets him with his usual easy grin—throwing a quick, "hey, Johnny boy!" down the length of the table—and they chat for a while, and then John kills him, and it's back to business as usual.

 

—

 

He has the chessboard set up by the time Merle arrives, sitting behind the array of black pieces when Merle blinks into being on the other side of the table. And as soon as he sees John and the board in front of him, he slides out of his seat and wanders down the length of the room to take the chair at John's left, the two of them angled at a diagonal and the chessboard sitting on the table's corner between them.

"So," Merle says, and if he seems surprised by any of this, it doesn't show in his voice, "I'm white, then?"

They settle into an easy back-and-forth once the game starts, the room staying mostly quiet save for the sound of the marble pieces sliding across the checkered squares and the occasional "check" traded once things have progressed a little farther. And John doesn't really know what he expected from Merle in this moment, but whatever mental image he would have come up with, he doesn't think it would have exactly lined up with the sharp furrow he can see in Merle's brow or the thoughtful way he lets his eyes skate across the board before making his decision.

It's satisfying and unnerving in equal measure, the way Merle always seems to be surprising him.

The game goes on for a half-hour, at least, but through it all, the sunset outside the window never seems to descend any further — leaving the room lit up in this constant shade of bright persimmon, untouched and untarnished by the bleeding navy ribbons of night that should be falling. But John can't say he minds, if only because of how the light lets him watch every thought cross Merle's face in clear and defined relief.

Maybe that's why his attention drifts enough from the game that the best he can do is to put Merle in a stalemate, rather than walking away with the win.

"I thought you had me too, you rascal," Merle says, after John voices the thought aloud, all amusement and an easy smile and no sharp edge of bitterness or resentment sitting under the words. Like he takes none of John's comments personally, or if he does, couldn't be less bothered by them. And for John, who spent so much of his life motivating people so relentlessly aware of their standing in the world, it's at once a breath of fresh air and decidedly unsettling.

However and whenever this ritual of theirs eventually ends, John's sure he's going to miss it.

With the match done, John pours Merle a glass of water and the conversation turns back to their game of questions and answers. And even though he knows it's not what he should be asking—recognizes how little it matters in the larger scheme of things—John decides to waste his turn on something frivolous, letting himself indulge in a vanity, if only this once.

"What do you call me, Merle? What do you all call me?"

Knowing it won't change anything — won't get him any closer to the Light or killing Merle for good (and it's funny, he thinks, how long he's spent ignoring that underlying goal. Because that's really the way all of this ends, isn't it?)

Merle doesn't give up the answer right away—continuing to hold onto this secret name he's kept hidden through the dozens of hours they've spent sitting in the conference room—and when he finally does, it's not what John expected.

"Well, I used to call you 'the Hunger'."

He hesitates, for a beat, before he says it, and he watches carefully for John's reaction once he does.

And John laughs a little, amused in spite of himself. "The Hunger?" He asks, still smiling.

"Yeah."

"I kind of like that."

"Yeah, I thought you might."

It's somewhat imprecise—painting with too-broad a brushstroke—but John thinks back to his days before ascendance, learning all he could and dissatisfied by everything he found, and so maybe it's not too far from the mark. And he looks at Merle, staring at him with this knowing edge behind the reflected orange of his glasses, and can't help but feel that maybe Merle has him figured better than anyone else.

John's not quite sure he minds it, for all it's a somewhat disquieting thought.

But then Merle asks him a question he doesn't see coming, one that seems both utterly innocuous and a violation of all the implicit rules John thought they both understood and had decided to abide by — like Merle's just lifted the chessboard out the table and thrown the thing through the fucking window.

"Are you my friend?"

He doesn't ask the question like there's anything sinister behind it, doesn't seem to mean anything other than what the words suggest on their surface. Still, it feels like the kind of trap John spent so many of their early meetings watchful for, and so his first response is all reactionary — rising abruptly and leveling a sharp look down at Merle and calling a handful of those toxic black flames into his hand, marble pieces from the disturbed chessboard sent rolling across the table's surface.

And he's staring down at Merle with this look that's all fury and the promise of death flickering in his hand and Merle doesn't even fucking _flinch_ — just meets the ire in John's eyes with this undisturbed patience and waits to see what happens next.

So John stops, and forces out a couple slow breaths, and thinks about what he's doing long enough to let the fire in his palm dissipate and to take a couple steps over to the windows. Realizes it's the product of paranoia to see a tripwire in Merle's question, and that even if what he's asking is part of some more elaborate plan, John can't see any way that giving Merle an answer could prove his undoing.

(Wonders, briefly, if maybe he reacts as violently as he does because he knows at heart that the answer is 'no', even if part of him would like for it to be 'yes'.)

He's staring out the window now, looking down at the hazy and ill-defined shapes that fill the rest of the world beyond the conference room, but even if he can't see Merle, he's no doubt that Merle is still watching him with that same unwavering stare. So John papers over any lingering emotion in his face with a carefully blank and well-practiced mask, and turns his attention back to considering the answer to Merle's question. And then he turns on his heel until Merle is back in his sightline, and he starts to talk, explaining why the question itself is a flawed one — giving Merle a reply without really giving him an answer.

As he does, he swears he can see Merle's face fall, a little. Like he's disappointed that John's still trying to offer him empty platitudes and pretend there's any real substance to them. Like he gave John a chance to prove himself, and, whatever the test was, John just failed.

And since it's a look he doesn't know what to do with—like Merle's staring fucking _through_ him—he deflects.  

"What brings you happiness, Merle? I know the game is over, but...what brings you joy?"

Merle pauses, apparently caught off-guard by John's abrupt turn.

"What brings me joy is... _life_. I think you can find joy anywhere — I think it's a conscious choice. I think you choose joy, in life. And no matter how bad things are, no matter how crummy or how dark, no matter how many times some guy named John kills your ass—"

John laughs at that.

"—you find joy. I've found joy—honest to God—getting to know you, and playing chess with you. I find joy in whatever I do, because at the end of the day, that's all you've got — looking back on the joy you had and the joy you found and the joy you gave other people."

There's a level of genuineness in Merle's voice that's so frank it almost hurts, all this unfiltered belief in such straightforward concepts and John remembers what it was like before he knew the things he knows now, when he also thought about life in such small-scale concepts.

And so he does his best to explain to Merle all the things he's learned, of recognizing the futility in trying to abide by the rules of the universe, of seeing the endless apathy promised by eternity. At some point, he resumes his seat in the conference room chair, forearms resting on the table and hands folded together and voice growing impassioned in the face of Merle's relentless impassivity. And he's not accustomed to such _indifference_ in the face of one of his speeches — Merle staring him down with this deadpan poker-face, and it's clear to John that he's not buying into a single solitary word.

It's downright fucking _infuriating_.

"You can't possibly conceive the length of eternity, Merle," John continues, lending a hardened and steel-sharp edge to his tone. " _I have_. It's maddening, and it's hopeless, but it's this burden we're all saddled with from the moment of our creation." He remembers what it was like, when he was younger and still so full of hope himself, and the day he realized how fucking _pointless_ the whole bullshit game was. "It stretches forever and ever, and it's too ambivalent to even taunt those trapped behind it. It is the _cruel_ price of existence, Merle, and it is too horrible to bear once you've seen it. Existence, Merle? Life? to exist—to live—is _horrible_."

He stops, seeing the forward cant of his body and hearing the raised volume in his tone and realizing he's pushed farther than he intended. And so he leans back into the chair and he lets out this half-laugh, as if that might defuse some of the tension that's filled up the space between him and Merle, suffusing the air like so many orange-colored dust motes.

But he knows he's failed as soon as he sees the frown cross Merle's face — a frown, John realizes, he's only seeing for the first time.

"I'll tell you what," Merle says, still fixing John with this unimpressed stare, "if we ever meet each other somewhere in infinity, you can apologize to me and tell me you were wrong."

And John feels the clear-cut surge of anger at Merle's words — because how _dare_ he presume to know more? Merle, who's only played witness to a few dozen planes—and John will give him and his friends credit for that particular party trick—as opposed to _John_ , who's spent a lifetime dedicated to these questions and _earned_ his answers and now Merle has the fucking gall to tell him he's _wrong_?

Outside, he can see ink-black clouds starting to bleed through the lines of the sunset — these tangled ribbons burning through the orange until the sky fades into this one even and endless coat of black, the whole thing shot through with flashes of lightning colored in bright, primary shades.

He doesn't know that this is how Merle typically sees the Hunger, but he knows enough to able to figure that the whole fucking world is about to come down around their ears.

"You call us 'the Hunger'," John says, "and that's not entirely inaccurate, but it would be more accurate to call us _dissatisfaction_. But soon? You will call us _ascendant_."

"Well, we'll see," Merle says, and if he's feeling anything other than vague annoyance, it doesn't show in his voice. "John, thanks for the chess game." He pauses, smiles. "And kiss my ass, you sanctimonious bastard."

This time, it's the whole room that fills with that black fire, and long after Merle is gone and John is back to his amorphous form, Merle's words are still ringing loud and insistent in his ears.

 

—

 

He doesn't see Merle again until that last time, when the Hunger—as he's taken to calling it himself—hasn't been fed in over a decade and John's lost what control that he had, feeling less like a general at the head of an army and more like a puppet, whittled hollow and strings screwed into his head and hands and feet.

In their time apart, Merle's managed to lose one of his eyes and one of his arms, but he still greets John with that same easy grin—like all that unpleasantness during their last conversation was a footnote, at worst—and John thinks what a fucking shame it is, that he never knew Merle in his other life.

Wonders how things might have turned out different if he had.

Their conversation doesn't last as long as John wants, but he thinks it's a successful one, overall — thinks Merle understands the words that John is saying and not saying before the walls are broken apart by the impatient hands of the Hunger and the room is melted back down to that black-opal void.

Then he's being pulled down into the pit himself, feeling those familiar ribbons tugging at his shoes and ripping at the fabric of his skin and splintering him into some unknown fragmented consciousness. But before he slips under for good—before he feels the stuff filling his throat and choking down into his lungs—there's a pair of hands wrapping around his upper body and it's Merle's shorter frame holding onto him for all he's worth. And it strikes John in that moment how little he deserves the aid Merle is offering, how little he deserved _any_ of the chances Merle offered him all those times they sat in that conference room together. But Merle gave them anyway, without a thought, and John wasted them all.

He hopes that, however and whenever this ends, he sees Merle one more time — if only so he can tell him that he's sorry.

**Author's Note:**

> i know we see john after the final parley session, but even griffin refers to him as "shadow john" and so I think it's fair to say his consciousness is gone by that point


End file.
